


he's not so good with metaphors

by orphan_account



Category: Hevi reissu (2018)
Genre: Purple Prose, Reindeer, chest fisting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:44:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Turo is a disappointment and kind of sucks, a little.





	he's not so good with metaphors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onnenlintu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onnenlintu/gifts).



Being dead: boring, but not that bad. Admittedly kind of suffocating at first, but Jynkky’s never been one to wallow in his discomfort. Once he figured out how to slip and slide around the iron nails in the coffin, it’s been okay. Sure, he needs a little push sometimes. That’s fine. He’s pretty good at asking for help. Turo slowed down at  _just_ the right second, but he's prouder that Lotvonen kicked the van _just_ in the right place. Lotvonen’s good at listening.

Well. To the important things, at least.

Sometimes.

The gig is over. Jynkky feels a little drained, but he supposes that’s normal. Adrenaline, and all that. Does he have adrenaline? He pokes at his back. He recalls vaguely that the kidneys have something to do with adrenaline. Does he have kidneys? Functioning ones? He attempts to piss against a tree, but he can’t brace himself against it to get his belt undone. He shrugs. Doesn’t quite matter. He drifts, but with intent.

It’s taking the police quite a long time to frog-march the rest of his band towards the cars. He considers the rocks scattered around the parking lot. The stone in his hand feels solid. Maybe because he’s trying to hold it and with the tree he was pushing, so his arm just went through. Maybe because he cares more. The locks on the back of the police vans go pretty fast – easy if you bang on the catch.

“Why won’t this fucking thing shut,” the border guard says. He slams the door open and prods at the jamb with the butt of his gun.

Turo’s too delirious with joy to mind what’s happening. Jynkky will give him that. So Jynkky leans on Xytrax, who is dazed and malleable. Thing Jynkky has always loved about Xytrax is that he knows exactly what he wants. You just have to say it out loud for him, sometimes.

“Xytrax,” Jynkky says, in his ear. He’s pleased to notice tiny movement – a hair out of place, a flake of paint. Xytrax blinks. “Hey. Hey. _Think._ What’s even _more_ metal than getting arrested?”  

Xytrax explodes out of the van like a rabbit.  

And, of course, everyone explodes after him. They can't afford to lose him. No offense to Lotvonen, but good guitar players aren’t that hard to find. A good bassist – a _really_ good bassist – Jynkky smiles to himself.  Harder to find than a good drummer.

He trips a few border guards and sails into the woods.

 

//

 

“We are _lost,_ ” Lotvonen wails. He had a lot of trouble in the grove of close-growing pine. The needles stuck in his hair give him a crown.

“We are _on the lam,_ ” Xytrax corrects. He has followed Turo’s example and queued up behind Oula. Oula seems totally unbothered by the very concept of obstacles. Or woods. He just stomps on the smaller trees until they get out of the way. A real drummer’s attitude, in Jynkky’s humble opinion. “Different.”

Lotvonen snags his handcuffs on a bush.

Jynkky hovers near Turo. Turo spent most of age six perfectly aware he was just a little too old to wet himself at such frequency. He would put off telling the teacher, or his mom, or Jynkky’s mom, for the longest time. Jynkky helped him soak quite a few pairs of wet underwear in the creek, or sometimes made him roll around in a mud puddle. Turo always had a face, a specific face, right after he peed himself. He grew out of the peeing himself (mostly) but he kept the face. He has it on now as he stumbles after Oula. Jynkky’s a little disappointed in him, to be honest. You can’t just be satisfied with one gig. That’s not very metal.

“It’s just Norway,” Oula says. He thwacks a shrub out of the way. “Not that scary.”

“Yes,” Xytrax says. “We will find the Vikings again.”

“They got arrested too,” Turo says. “I saw – ”

“They can’t arrest all of them,” Oula says. He leapfrogs over a fallen log. “Hell, they can’t even stay long. That’s got to be every pig in the area. We’re not a danger and they’ll get bored soon. We go home, soon as they go back to guarding the border from terrorists.”

Turo attempts some sort of noncommittal grunt.

“Trust me,” Oula says. “Not my first rally.”

He laughs. When he two-handed pulls a branch out of the way, it bends back to swat Turo against the face. Jynkky catches him before he falls all the way back.

 

//

 

They stop, at one point, to catch their breaths, and then longer. Lotvonen immediately falls asleep against a sun-warmed rock. The late-evening sun hits the pine needles and makes his hair look neon green. Very glam. The woods are silent around them. The trees taste different up here. Jynkky floats on the ridge overlooking a broad-bowl valley and opens his mouth, trying to remember how his nose works. Not that he needs to, really, but he thinks it might be important later. The sap in the air brittles in his mouth. It sticks down into him, coating what used to be his lungs and sticking him down harder into the ground. He’s pleased. If he flexes his fingers in a beam of bluish sunlight, it’s almost like he can see them.

Jynkky does a quick look-round and figures that Xytrax, glowing as he is with ambition, will still be easiest to talk to. Jynkky zeroes him in on a loose wrist-spike and Xytrax, after some staring, detaches it from the leather. Pick, pick, and he gets he catch on his handcuffs. He stabs Lotvonen in the arm a few times but the principle is sound. Oula snatches the spike away from Xytrax and digs himself out, and then there’s just Turo, looking forlorn. He winces dropping the cuffs in the dirt.

“So, plans?” This from Oula. “Bet they’re bored by now. We could go back to the festival. Turo said they had a good lineup.”

Xytrax ticks off on his fingers. “We have just played a very successful gig,” he says. “We are internationally famous. We headlined a festival. I think now, we have a break, so we don’t get burned out. That gives us time so we can think about the themes for the rest of the album.”

“Freedom,” Oula suggests, and snickers.

“That is an excellent theme,” Xytrax says.

“Not being in jail,” Lotvonen says, “and how great that is, because we can do our own thing.”

Turo says nothing. Jynkky waits for him to say that he’d like to go see Amon Amarth. Turo just sort of shrugs when Xytrax looks at him.

“A walk will clear our heads,” Xytrax declares, “so we can brainstorm.”

"It'll help us think about things, too," Lotvonen says.

And the march begins anew. Turo's looking at his feet. Jynkky frowns.

 

//

 

It’s not as hot as last summer. No forest fires ruining anyone’s barbecues. Still pretty hot, though, in that kind of worrying way that reminds you that the planet is completely fucked to hell and everyone will die in agony by 2050. Jynkky can feel sweat from glands he no longer has wanting to bead on his forehead. It makes him itch in a distant and unscratchable way, like just before an inside-nose pimple erupts.

Jynkky keeps being super impressed by Xytrax. Absolutely in awe of how he’s caught the vibe. Xytrax leads them through shadows, along the edge of cave-pocked fells. They’re far enough north that the woods here aren’t as thick as at home, kind of scrubbier, and Xytrax is hissing at the sun like Gollum and finding the roughest, deepest woods to barge through.

For the first two days there are ripened-early berries. And adrenaline. And Oula, who is loudly and cheerfully saying that this is just like the wilderness around his mom’s house, which is about forty kilometers away, except it’s worse, and he will explain why, in excruciating detail. And Xytrax, explaining to Lotvonen the intensely important metal properties of being – not lost, but on a fate-directed meditative trek –  in the woods. Xytrax knows all the relevant concept albums. Xytrax has determined that Lotvonen needs to brush up on his knowledge of atmospheric black metal. Xytrax thinks Lotvonen should pick up some dark ambient, even. Lotvonen’s happy to agree.

And then there’s Turo. Turo who is dead-eyed and trudging.

Jynkky probably should have seen this coming. It’s not like Turo is anything less than a complete mess at the best of times. A mess. It’s exasperating. When he puked during the first show, well, that was mild, wasn’t it? That wasn’t a problem. Turo pukes at the thought of calling the plumber. Jynkky had to make sure he didn’t eat for twelve hours before he went into his job interview. Turo pukes when he’s nervous and the world keeps not ending.  Turo hasn’t puked yet but he’s blank-faced and hasn’t said a word in days. He just keeps staggering on after Xytrax.

Jynkky misses him. Misses being able to talk to him. The sap and the weird hazy filter of the moonless summer nights are keeping him pretty tied into the world. Turo isn’t, that’s the problem. Turo’s life has been terribly disappointing, in that it's been caustically boring, and that’s made him terrified of everything. Jynkky wants to tell him it’s fine, that they are just walking in the woods. Turo lives _in_ the woods. He has never in his life been in a situation where there aren’t woods, except for that time he and Jynkky went to Helsinki to see Trivium. Turo threw up behind a Hesburger. He wasn’t even drunk. He wouldn’t have thrown up behind the Hesburger if he’d been brave enough to ask for his burger without cheese.

Jynkky misses him, but he thinks, not for the first time, that Turo kind of sucks. Just a little.

The third day ends. The sky tips towards the bluish, fuzzy night, and with it come clouds. It’s not cold, exactly, but it’s raining pretty hard, and Lotvonen has an idea. “We should start a fire.”

“No,” Xytrax says. He is standing carefully under a tree. Despite this his corpse paint is blurring. “We should feel the nature.”

“But burning things,” Lotvonen says. “That’s metal, right?” He brightens. “Especially burning down a whole forest. Huh?”

“No,” Xytrax says.

“But you were saying – ”

“Burning _churches_ is black metal,” Xytrax says. “Only churches. Occasionally. Once everyone is out. It’s a metaphor.”

Lotvonen squints at the trees. “We _are_ in Norway. We could build a stave church and burn it down.”

Xytrax contemplates, then shakes his head. “That’s not black metal at all.”

“But we’d be burning it down,” Lotvonen insists. “That’s very pagan.”

Oula is watching this with vague befuddlement. “Are you pagans or Satanists?”

"Both."

"What?"

“It’s a _state of mind,_ ” Xytrax says. "Look - "

Turo starts sneezing. He parks himself on a damp rock and contrives to be miserable and silent while Xytrax explains the pagan/Satanic state of mind to Lotvonen and Oula. Jynkky’s glad they’re having fun. Jynkky watches Turo stare with Wet-Himself guilt at his shoes and decides that he’s sort of done with him.

He retracts himself from the world, away from the pine sap and the blue night, and sails away, back through time and space, back into the gig. The rumble of the crowd beneath him. The clang of foam-rubber axe against riot shield. He’ll be reliving this memory the rest of his – not life. He can sink into it at any time, or carry it half-shouldered and have it buzz through him when he’s bored directing Lotvonen away from the swampier patches. He likes that he can see Lotvonen and Xytrax and even Oula carrying it around, a thin membrane warming them in even the darkest summer afternoon.

Goddamn, why can’t Turo be happy about this? Besides that Turo sucks, just a little. Jynkky feels a pout coming on. This is beyond sucking just a little. Jynkky parks himself in an arctic-stunted fir and morosely contemplates the raindrops passing through him. Turo’s a _downer._ That’s what he is. Turo has always been a downer. Oh, we can't write songs now, we gotta practice. Can't go to Oulu to try out that Kuusamo cover, gotta practice. Can't show other people what we're doing, ever, can't be musicians who exist out in the world, just gotta be these weirdos in the band shirts with the long hair for the entirety of our lives and/or until Pasi overdoses on Uruguayan grindcore and spontaneously morphs into a demon, we'd probably suck anyways. This is unfair and mean but he doesn't care. At least Turo got to play a full gig. Idiot.

He gets over his snit after a while and goes to see what's happening. Xytrax and Lotvonen have compromised: if they build a heathen temple that is then forcibly converted into a church, then they can burn it down. Jynkky watches Lotvonen scratch a cross into their vaguely hut-shaped collection of twigs and smiles. These two have always had the right idea about how to behave.

 

//

 

Look. Jynkky loves his bandmates. He loves them, he appreciates them (admittedly minus Turo right now), and he would die – well, has died – for them, but they’re driving him a _little_ crazy right now. It’s been ten days, maybe more, since Xytrax bolted out of the police van. They haven’t found any ripe berries for a while, and Lotvonen’s experiment with the mushrooms, while exciting, was probably not very nutritious. It took Jynkky forever to find this reindeer: untagged, not visibly pregnant, taint gloriously free of parasites. He had to chase it down from the other side of the little river winding through the woods and pester it over to this campsite. Lotvonen, the idiot, is fucking cooing over it. Lotvonen tried to eat a handful of pine needles out of his hair the other day, but he’s kneeling to pet the stupid reindeer. Xytrax has been refreshing his corpse paint with mud, but yesterday’s full-on powerwash of a rainstorm clearly took it out of him. He told Lotvonen earlier today that they should consider making a concept album about rabbit starvation. He’s kind of listing to starboard. Jynkky’s not sure if he knows the reindeer is there. Turo has the Wet Himself look on. Jynkky is so tired of him not making any effort.

Oula beholds the reindeer. It beholds him back, chewing fretfully. Oula raises his eyebrows to high heavens and tilts his head back. Jynkky flits above him, hoping to in some way catch his eye. Oula shrugs. He looks down, works his jaw, and gives the reindeer a mighty punch between the eyes.

Lotvonen gets the picture after the reindeer is dead. He spends approximately six to eight hours a day on this very thing, and Jynkky watches him wrap up head up in his shirt. “For hygiene,” he explains to no one, and yanks his hair down his shoulders. Xytrax, who has suddenly become very aware of the cleansing and metal properties of a good forest fire, deigns to build a massive firepit. He claims custody of the reindeer skin and climbs up on the nearest rock to wrap himself in it. Lotvonen says “Maybe we can make sausages” and Oula uncurls the intestines from the belly. Turo pukes. The other three move away from him.

Lotvonen, Oula, and Xytrax are gorged and snoring by the time the faint moon crests into the sky. Turo is shaking with hunger, curled around the fire, plaintively ignoring the tray of grilled reindeer. Jynkky’s annoyance has washed away. Poor, stupid Turo. Poor guy.

Jynkky sighs and rummages around in his pockets.

He had a few bites in the car, just to see if it would taste like anything. It did. Lotvonen’s a fucking godsend, really, even if he talks to reindeer like they’re kittens. Jynkky peels the bun off the Jynkky Special (no pickles) and scrapes away as much ghostly cheese as he can find. He jams it in Turo’s hand in front of the strip of reindeer meat. Turo takes a bite. Turo blinks at his hand, and then shoves the strip in his mouth. Eats like a horse. Or like Jynkky. Jynkky has to play rearrangement with the ghostly Jynkky Special, but that’s no trouble, and Turo stops hunger-vibrating in short order.

It’s interesting. Xytrax and Lotvonen and even Oula have been so easy to nudge the last few days. Turo’s a sheer rock face with no handholds. Except now, licking special sauce (which is really reindeer blood) from his hand, he opens up, suddenly, like his skin has been ripped off. Jynkky feels terrible for eye-rolling so hard. Turo’s not being Turo, who is ambiguously lactose intolerant and overall just sucks a little. _Turo misses Jynkky._  Turo doesn’t care that he was starving and that Xytrax’s irises have started to turn a smoky red. Turo misses Jynkky.  That’s what he cares about. That’s all.

The missing-strength curls around him, digs down, fills the gaps where his bones aren’t anymore. The sap runs down in what should be his veins. He remembers how his nose works, and then he doesn’t have to remember it because a) his body just does that and b) Jynkky stinks suddenly, of forest and sweat and reindeer blood. He wipes at his face with his shirt. Turo is flat on his back on the slab of rock, palms grinding into his eyes. Jynkky leans over to pull him up and Turo opens his eyes and bolts.

Jynkky can still float, he finds. If he doesn’t care about the trees, he can pass through them. He follows Turo, keeping pace, until Turo slips on a muddy patch and nearly catapults himself into the river cutting through the woods. Jynkky manages to get in front of him and shoves him up the steep, muddy bank. Turo falls back on his hands and whimpers. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I fucked it all up.”

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about,” Jynkky says. “What did you fuck up? Nothing. What the hell could you be sorry for?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Turo waves his hands and manages to fling mud in his eye. “Shit.”

“Why are you supposed to do anything? You did the coolest fucking shit, dude!” Jynkky wants to shake him. “Who’s supposed to do anything?”

Turo’s mouth drops open so perfectly that Jynkky has the weirdest urge to put a coin in it.

“You weren’t supposed to die,” he says.

Jynkky winces. He scrubs at his arms. 

“What were you thinking?” Turo has that glint of annoyance to him, the one that turns his eyes catlike. “That I, what, that I’m sad we have to go to jail? I don’t care about that. I’m fine with that. Like Xytrax says, that’s _totally_ black metal.” He grinds his knuckles into the dirt. “I’m sad you aren’t here, dude.”

Jynkky gestures to himself. Turo curls his mouth up and gets to his feet. Turo leans over, and he jabs a hand straight through Jynkky. It feels impossible. Turo breathes through his nose and withdraws and the flesh that isn’t there reforms under Jynkky’s T-shirt. 

“That felt really gross,” he said.

“I’m here now,” Jynkky says.

“Yeah. You’re still dead.”

Turo sounds absolutely betrayed. He kicks at the mud and succeeds in losing his shoe. He starts dancing around to pull it out and Jynkky has to body-check him away from the river again. Jynkky shoos him away, up the bank a bit, and pulls it out. Hands it over.

“Thanks,” Turo mutters. He sits on a fallen log and tries to wrangle it back on his foot. Glares at Jynkky through his hair. “You _are_ still dead, right?”

“Think so.”

“You’re not going to wake up and be legally declared alive again?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Fuck,” Turo says. He stops fucking around with his shoe and wipes angrily at his face. “Of all people, I was not prepared for you to kick the bucket. Maybe P – maybe Xytrax. That would suck, but – Remember that winter when he got _really_ into Shining?”

“Oh boy, do I.”

“And Lotvonen – ”

They together contemplate Lotvonen plus the assortment of sharp things at the slaughterhouse. Turo clears his throat. “Anyways. Yeah. I don’t know, we got offstage, we were in the police van, it felt great, but I kept thinking – what’s the point? Jynkky’s not here. What's the point of planning for new gigs? Jynkky's not here and that's not fair and it's fucked up. That's all I could think. _Jynkky's not here._ ”

“I was literally there,” Jynkky points out. “In the crowd.”

“In a coffin. Because you were dead. Are dead.” Turo looks hopeful. “Are you sure you’re still dead?”

Jynkky is not sure how to remind him of the chest fisting without using those exact words. He scratches the back of his neck, then puts a fist in Turo’s own chest. Turo blinks at him.

“I think we have to accept it,” Jynkky says. “Look, it sucks I can’t drum anymore. It does. But everything else – there’s nothing to complain about, okay? Lotvonen and Xytrax were fucked up about me kicking the bucket, I know they were, but they’re not still losing it over - are you listening to me?”

“Wolverine,” Turo says says.

“Huh?”

“Across the river,” Turo says. "There's a wolverine."

Jynkky whips round and takes a step back. That is, indeed, a wolverine. It is a massive wolverine. It has a face covered in blood. Jynkky thinks about Xytrax and his new reindeer pelt and grimaces. Xytrax has been doing great so far but he's not the body type that could fight off a wolverine. 

"Jynkky?"

"Yeah?"

"I really, really missed you."

The wolverine has lifted its leg to pee. "I missed you too."

"Jynkky?"

"Yes?"

“You are inside me,” Turo says, very carefully.

“Oh.” So he is. Full body. "Sorry.”

“Wait.”

“It – “ Jynkky thinks he feels Turo’s heart pounding on top of his dead one and that creeps him out. He concentrates on the sap in the air, wills it to leave him alone, and there’s a wet _splorch_ sound as he wrangles himself out of Turo. He wipes his hand on his jeans and grimaces. “Sorry.”

Turo's pitched over a little, breathing hard.

"Dude, you okay?"

Turo has cat eyes. “Yes,” he says. "Yes."

Jynkky feels Turo's _missing-him_ ratchet up. Fills him up like an arrow through the roof of his mouth. It throbs hard enough to rattle the trees. He blinks. He gets the feeling that they should continue to talk, have some sort of emotions session here on the bank, maybe apologize for not understanding, maybe thank Turo for getting off his ass and dragging everyone else off their collective asses, maybe drown Turo so they'd both be ghosts together and forever confirm their metal cred (though if he wants to be honest that's probably more in Xytrax's wheelhouse), but -

“Put your hand through me again,” Turo says.

That’s about the clearest request Jynkky has ever heard from him. Like, in his life. Ever. Jynkky obliges.

The wolverine, across the river, isn’t sure what it’s observing. It watches for a long time. Everything continues to make no sense. It gets bored after a while and waddles off.

 

//

 

Jynkky fades out when Turo falls asleep – the _missing-you_ has uncoupled from where his bones should be, and he doesn’t smell so terrible anymore. He’s a little antsy. He should check if Xytrax is still alive. Or if Lotvonen is.

“I saw that,” Oula says, looming out from behind the dying fire. “ _And_ heard it. He has pipes, doesn’t he.”

Jynkky wants to explain, to defend himself, and then thinks: what needs defending? Nothing at all. He puffs up his chest. “Yup.”

“Why him? He’s not that pretty.”

“Ehhh. I’m not either.”

“You’re also a ghost,” Oula points out. “You have novelty value.”

Jynkky laughs.

“No, really,” Oula says. He groans cracking his wrists. “Look, I know nothing about metal, but I know that if you took the average of every single singer in every single metal band in the world, you would have a blender full of human spleens. But you’d also have Turo. I’d take the spleens.”

Jynkky feels a scowl working its way up. Oula’s not wrong, but – “Come on, he’s my friend.”

“He’s my friend too,” Oula says. “He just sucks, a little.”

Jynkky laughs, he can’t help it.

Oula grins. “I’m not sure why you didn’t cut your losses on him.” He jabs a finger in the direction of the Xytrax/Lotvonen pile. Neither of them look dead. “Those two, they have talent. They’re committed. I’ve been committed, I know the score on that one.”

“Turo’s the frontman,” Jynkky says. “He has, uh, charisma.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“No he doesn’t,” Jynkky admits. “But still.”

Oula gives him an eye, and then waggly eyebrows. “Does he have other talents?”

“Nope,” Jynkky says.

“Sucks for you. Miia will be very disappointed.”

“Ehhhh.” Jynkky rocks his hand. “Maybe. But he’s trying very hard. Points there.” He warms to that. “He tries. Okay? He got everyone to Norway. He stole the van! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.”

Oula snorts. Jynkky hovers closer to him. Oula purses his lips. “I’ve been wondering why you haven’t been talking to me, but then I figured, I took your job. No hard feelings.”

“I didn’t know you could see me.”

“Well, now you do.”

“Thank you for helping get me here,” Jynkky says. “You’re a great drummer.”

Oula shrugs. “Thanks. But you know I didn’t do anything to get you here.” He stretches. “I just go along with things.”

“Why?”

Oula tilts his head at a ninety-degree angle “Because I’m crazy,” he says. “Hello? Pay attention.”

Damn, but Jynkky likes this guy. He holds his hand out to shake. Oula looks at it. He’s put Lotvonen halfway through the nearest tree before Jynkky remembers he still has his sticks.

 

//

 

It’s the elf who finds them. The elf, followed by a ragged and decimated but still enthusiastic troop of Vikings. “We’ve been tracking you for days,” he says proudly. He hoists a battered GPS in the air. The Vikings bang their swords on their shields.

“Fantastic,” Oula says. “Are there wraiths behind you?”

The elf stares shiny-eyed at Xytrax. “Are those real antlers?”

Xytrax squats behind his staff. The tendons aren’t drying very well but it looks creepy enough that you don’t squint too hard at that this is a grown-ass man, covered in a bloody pelt, an antlered reindeer skull on his head, fangs erupting over his lips, carrying a rotting animal leg around. Lotvonen’s hair has gone full green. In Jynkky’s opinion, it’s a great look.

“My dad has a summer house,” the elf says. “You can camp out there. I think. We were going to go for a while, but Miia talked to her dad. So most of us got off.”

Miia has charcoal blacking her eyes and a headdress made out of swan feathers. Someone has lent her a splitting maul, which she has decorated with the tattered remnants of her floral blouse. Jynkky is proud of her. She is definitely going to school in Oulu.

“And Petter – ”

A large Viking with a foam battleaxe raises his hand.

“Petter’s dad works for border patrol,” the elf says. “So that was the other most of us got off. So we can just go to our homes. The summer house has WiFi.”

“It’s shitty WiFi,” Petter says, “but it works.”

Turo is swaying. The third night of warm reindeer meat didn’t meet his belly halfway. He’s visibly lost weight. Being around people has always screwed him up a bit. Jynkky curls his toes into his boots and waits, uncharitably, for him to say it: that they should give up. That they have already made a point. That Pasi is scaring him now, even though there’s no more Pasi, there will never be any more Pasi, there’s only Xytrax, silent as he is on the ridge with the rowan-crowned reindeer femur digging into the rock. That he’s sorry for ditching Miia, or afraid of her dad, or his feet hurt, or something.

Turo says, “Do your dad’s cabin have beer?”

As they follow the elves through the forest, Jynkky spots Turo’s boxers, snagged on a branch overhanging a tiny waterfall. Jynkky asked him what the hell he was doing and Turo startled and lost balance and in the process of trying not to drown dropped the boxers and they disappeared into the river. Turo is such a virgin. He's hopeless. Jynkky backs up: that’s not fair. Turo is neurotic. That’s the word. So fucking neurotic. He cares too much, about everything. About Jynkky. Ah, fuck it, who cares? They’re still in Norway, aren’t they? Let Turo be neurotic.

Okay, they might be in Sweden now. He’s not sure how far they walked. Still.

Turo slips hitching up his jeans and almost impales himself on a pine branch. Jynkky slings an arm around his shoulder. Holds him up. The elf’s dad’s cabin does indeed have beer. And burgers. Reindeer burgers. Turo eats his without pickles. Jynkky Special.

(He forgets to ask them to take off the cheese and ends up puking next to the hot tub, but then he just wipes his mouth off and climbs back in.)

**Author's Note:**

> Why did I do this it is four thousand words long and incomprehensible and it's 2am


End file.
